You're Not Far From Forever
by varicose
Summary: "I know it seems like everything is changing," he said in her ear, "but you're not that far from forever."


One of the things about living in a house full of vampires is this: they smell blood, they come running.

In the bathroom, she was pulling her pants back up, crying a little, wiping at her face. Her grandfather told her that all her tears would dry up when she stopped growing. Next year she would stop growing for good, so she welcomed the tears while they were still able to flow freely down her cheeks, the way you welcome an annoying great-aunt who won't be around for much longer. Whenever her family was sad, she wondered if their tears were just being held inside by their diamond skin, and if she cracked open their cheeks, would all those tears come pouring out like a tidal wave?

She had her pants on her hips when the door caved in. The sound of the wood cracking was loud, Renesmee impulsively hopped up to the bathroom sink and perched there, wishing she hadn't locked the door. Her father was standing in the threshold, around all the mahogany of the door he'd just broken down, fists clenched for fight, with that wild vampire look he only got when he was hunting or getting into an argument with Jacob.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt? There's blood?" he was asking. Nessie clamped her knees together and yelled for him to get out.

She was bleeding between her legs, and knew vaguely what it meant, but also knew less vaguely that it was private. Her father looked at her quizzically- he was probably wishing that her mother hadn't extended her shield to Nessie, so that he could tell what she was thinking, but Renesmee didn't trust Edward to stay out of her head. Bella had agreed to make her mute to him, probably because she though it would protect Renesmee from embarrassing moments such as this one.

Edward seemed to understand after another humiliating sniff of the air. He apologized politely, but Renesmee had started to cry again.

"Darling, don't cry," he tried to come into the room a bit more, but Renesmee suddenly wanted to be only miles away from him. She very quickly jumped down from the sink and threw open the bathroom window. Edward could have easily followed her, but she didn't think of that She practically flew down from the roof and hit the ground painlessly, taking off in a run. She thought of what Jasper had told her last week, that she was _such a dramatic person. _Maybe so, but she wasn't taking this whole growing up thing very well.

In the woods, she stayed up in a tree and scaled the land. She liked to look out at the scenery, but the dreary places they were always going to were getting old. Nessie craved the sun, which always seemed to be too far away from her. She didn't care that her skin shone, she thought it was pretty. As the birds and bats flew over her head, and the pale sun was setting somewhere behind the endless clouds, Renesmee was distracted by a sound:

Paws, hot breath, nails scraping the roots of trees, grass shredding underfoot. Jacob was getting closer. She crossed her arms and sat back against the branch, thinking, _he can come to me. _

It was exceptionally easy to get Jacob to come to her, any given time. She heard a loud ripping sound that could only be Jacob's wolf skin tearing away to reveal Jacob's human skin. She thought of him as someone made of endless layers on top of each other. Skin on top of fur, on top of skin, on top of fur, skin, fur, skin, fur- all the way down to his heart. She wondered what was at the center of him, skin or fur?

She kept scaling the land, ignoring the dull ache in her abdomen, the gross, wet feeling in her underwear. She bit back her tears, bit down on her tongue, but they came anyway. Her teeth were out of practice.

She looked across the land in front of her again and saw the russet color of Jacob, or rather, his skin in the distance. She craned her neck, realizing that he was naked completely. She knew that it was wrong to look, but curiosity got the best of her, and she found herself seeing more of him as he came closer. It certainly was not the only time she had seen his body. When they played in the woods together, when she was younger, he always freely shifted and shredded his clothes in front of her. Somewhere along the line, nakedness became taboo, and he became modest with her. She felt little shivers of nostalgia for the time when Jacob had seemed to trust her with absolutely everything. He was different now, a little bit. He acted differently.

He pulled a pair of shorts from the string tied to his ankle, turned around briefly to put them on. Then he stood back and stretched, smelling the air.

Nessie could smell the blood between her legs and it overpowered everything, the way blood always does. It was covering the pine of the forest, the mud that last night's rainfall had made, the smell of bird shit, even, which was always in abundance in the forest. Her father was right, she realized- blood was their curse.

"I know you're out there, Ness," Jacob suddenly called. He could no doubt smell it too.

"Leave me alone." She said it breathlessly, wondering if his hearing was good enough to pick it up. He was about three yards away from her.

"If that's what you want," she heard him say, and he began stretching his arms in preparation, about to shift.

"Wait!" she shouted, suddenly wanting his heat and his eyes on her, making her feel better as he always did.

Jacob heard that full and clear. His head swung around, looking every which way until he saw her, finally, perched where she was in the tree. He began running to her, his smell getting closer, and she braced herself against the branch as the tree shook with his weight. He had less finesse climbing up, not in the graceful way that vampires or vampire-human hybrids could climb. But it was effortless how he lifted himself and never grunted or showed any sign of strain. He came up to a branch near her, and Renesmee inhaled the pungent, rich aroma of his wolf-blood.

"You took off pretty fast, kiddo," he said, arranging his long legs awkwardly into a crouch. Nessie quickly jumped from her branch and landed back where she was, mirroring his crouch. Their poses reminded her of the games they used to play when she was younger. She'd be the feral cat and he'd be the wild dog, growling and pawing at the earth, crouched into attack poses, pouncing viciously on each other, but softening the blow every time. They wouldn't dare try to hurt each other.

"It was dad," she said simply. It occurred to her that she could try to show him what had happened, but she remembered that this thing happening in her underwear made her feel embarrassed, and that Jacob was a man who had no inkling of what she was going through. It would be inappropriate. "I shouldn't talk about it with you."

Jacob shrugged lightly, swatted the air with his hand. "You can talk about anything."

Nessie thought about this for a moment. She knew that he knew- how could he not know? Everyone in a three-mile radius of her could smell it, and nothing was private. She longed for a secret, any secret, that she could keep to herself, cradle against her chest, covet and worship. "Tell me a secret," she told Jacob.

He looked a little confused. "A secret?"

"Yeah. Something…no one else knows." _Only me, _she thought.

"I don't have any secrets, kiddo," Jacob said, shrugging again.

"Oh sure you do," she said. She reached up and grabbed the branch above her, started swinging softly, back and forth.

Jacob was quiet for a while, during which time Nessie went nearly mad, wondering what he could be possibly thinking about. What he could be _hiding _from her. She waited for another few moments, but it became clear to her that he wasn't going to say anything. Deflated, she dropped back down into crouch on the branch, and sat in a huff, looking at Jacob's eyes.

"I hate it," she said, changing the subject. She watched curiously for his reaction, then touched his arm and showed him her shock; the crimson color she saw when she looked down; Edward busting down the door; the alien pain that was still throbbing inside her. Her power tingled on her fingertips until she pulled away.

"Your dad," he began, "has no sense of privacy."

She took his hand and pulled her shirt up simultaneously, put it on her abdomen, where the pain radiated from. "Feel it? It's too warm. It hurts."

Jacob pulled his hand away and she pulled her shirt down. He stroked the top of her head and said, "It won't last forever."

Renesmee, on the verge of tears, said, "Nothing ever does."

Jacob didn't ask her what she meant, he merely opened his arms to her. She felt an invisible string tied to her middle, it often tugged and pulled her toward him in an unexplainable way. As if he were the only one who could console her, who could ever tame her when she wanted to run wild. She climbed into his hug, tucking his warm body around her like a cherished quilt. She traced his freckles, his smooth skin that aged so slowly, devoid of wrinkles, though his body should be older. He wasn't young, wasn't old- he was somewhere in the middle, like her.

"I know it seems like everything is changing," he said in her ear, "but you're not that far from forever."

She allowed herself to be comforted by the fact that in a year, she'd be like the rest of her family, and she'd stand still in time for once, without any agonizing growing pains or strange new things coming from inside her. Jacob was right.

It then occurred to her, with a shocking realization, and a pang in her chest as destructive as a bullet wound, that Jacob, her Jacob, would not be forever. His skin that looked young was still skin, soft and vulnerable, mortal, aging slowly, but still aging. She curbed her sudden fear, angry at herself for never thinking of this. Jacob, who was not vampire could die at any time. She clutched him tightly, and asked,

"How are you going to last forever?"

Jacob, who was smoothing her hair down, said this,

"That's just part of my secret, Nessie."

_A/N:_ _Nothing is mine. Reviews are always wonderful, and I don't mind flames, because I can roast marshmallows on them. _


End file.
